I never thought I would actually write on this forum, but I’m hoping this will help with my journey of ending my binge eating. So here goes nothing:

All my life I’ve been a skinny girl. I have very fast metabolism, thanks to my Dad, so I’ve never had to worry about my weight. A year and a half ago (or 2 summers ago) I was underweight by about 8-10 pounds (114 pounds), but I wasn’t all skin and bones because I did have some muscle from going to the gym and sports. The reason I was underweight at that point was because I stopped having fast food (which I would have at least once a week) and started incorporating salads into my everyday meals. As the year went on I would fluctuate between about 119 and 124, I was completely healthy but I started having fast food again because I love it, don’t we all? Then summer came around again and I wanted to get off a few pounds so I signed up online with livestrong and started keeping track of every calorie I had that day. I brought my daily calorie intake down to about 1000-1200 and would work off about 500 at the gym everyday. For me that felt like I was starving myself because I was used to eating more than that because of my metabolism. After a few weeks of doing that I decided to stop because I knew I couldn’t go on forever with this type of lifestyle and that it probably wasn’t the healthiest for me especially because I was a perfectly healthy weight. So I began eating “normally” again and gained the weight I lost and even more weight back on, probably about 8 pounds. But now I was eating even more than I had been been I was a normal weight and I didn’t understand it nor would I stop myself because I knew I had still looked ok. So I kept eating and eating, gaining more weight. But then came the end of summer and almost the start to my freshman year of college. I brought my weight down to where I was ok with it, but I knew that during school I wanted to bring it down even more. So I told myself that by thanksgiving I would be back to one of my lower weights, but that didn’t happen so I told myself winter break… then told myself spring break… and now I’m telling myself summer, but I haven’t gotten anywhere close and am now 20 pounds heavier than my lowest weight.

During this year I have never felt worse about myself, I lay in bed and cry at night, thinking back to how happy I used to be when I wasn’t this fat. I feel disgusted and guilty with myself after I binge and I tell myself how I’m a failure. This year I even started making myself throw up, which I thought I’d never do. I would say my binge eating is from emotions. I get so sad knowing that I used to be so skinny and have my “ideal” body and now that’s all ruined. Also I’m on a break with my boyfriend because he wanted me to have a good freshman year and not hold back from anything I want to do. But the thing is I’ve held back from so much this year. I’ve barely gone out because of how I look and feel and I don’t become friends with anyone except for people on my floor. I do have really good friends here, but I used to be so much more social. I feel that my freshman year has just been about food and feeling bad about myself.

I can’t keep doing this when this is my last time to do whatever I want and have fun before going out into the real world after college. I just can’t keep doing this to myself. I’ve tried dieting, throwing up, not eating anything, and even eating normally, but so far no luck. That’s why I’m hoping this forum will help me. I’m not sure if anyone will read this, but I least I have it so I can look at it and remember to keep going and not give up. Not only am I doing this for myself, but I’m also doing it for you all. To prove it is possible to get over our binge eating and so you can be proud of me. I haven’t let anyone else know about my binge eating so I hope that you will be my supporters.

Kristen…you bet many of us will read your post. The one thing we can all do here is realize what you are going through because it is so many of our stories too. But, I know this is about you and how you are isolating yourself from fun and friends and yourself. You are not a failure it is that binge eating taking over your life.

Many of us have read the book by Kathryn Hansen, “Brain over Binge” and have found success. I got a copy through the library. It may be a good place for you to begin. Actually, you already began…you found us.

Thank you so much for responding and your kind words. I went to Barnes and Noble to check for the book but they didn’t have it so when I go home after the semester I will check my local library. I feel better knowing other people are going through the same struggles I am and I’m glad we’re all in this together. I hope you have a great day as well.

hi kristen, sorry you are going through all this but i am glad you found us. a lot of people on this forum will connect with what you are saying, how it all stems from wanting to improve by dieting & being healthy but somewhere along the line it all backfires and you are left feeling miserable, with this very distressing pattern of eating. the book that eemslo mentioned is awesome and will explain to you what is going on in your head. thankfully, it does not all come down to your emotional state! imagine you had to fix all your emotional problems in order to eat properly!! if you haven’t already, start to read some of the other journals on the forum, you will see very quickly that you are not alone. and keep coming back, it really does help xxx

I’ve been reading other peoples’ journals the past couple of days and it has helped. I can relate to so many of them. I honestly love all the support everyone has on here and I know eventually I can get through this. I will definitely pick up that book because I saw that many other people have read it and it changed them too. I will continue to check back everyday to read more journals.

This might sound weird, but what I’ve been doing over the past few days is just not thinking about my binge eating. I’m not saying that it’s not in the back of my mind, because that could cause a binge and then afterwards I would be like “what did I just do?” But instead I’ve been keeping myself busy while I was away at a friend’s graduation this past weekend. I know I struggle day to day because I’m scared I will binge that day or if I haven’t yet then it is coming because it’s a normal routine for me to binge. So I’m continuing to keep my mind off of binge eating and focus on eating 3 meals a day (I tend to overeat when I snack so I’m sticking with 3 meals for now).

Also thank you to everyone for your responses they really make me smile have a great day!!

ah well. if you don’t know why then don’t try to analyse it, just pick yourself up and move on. sometimes binges just come at you from out of nowhere – it all comes back to habit i think! hope you have a better day today xxx